Community
The Free Software Revolution
Community-driven Free Software development has been a revolution in the way that software is created, and the way that value is generated from software. Projects such as Linux, GNU and GNOME provide rich toolsets which can be used to build solutions and products adapted to meet your exact needs and the needs of your users, with a fraction of the R&D costs and accelerated time to market.
Culture clashes
Often, though, traditional software development teams do not get maximum returns on investment from Free Software development. You end up with an internal branch which has to be integrated (and resulting regressions have to be addressed) every time you upgrade the packages you depend on. Changes which you make build up over time, and never seem to get accepted back into the core product. Your maintenance costs climb over time.
Products are released as Free Software, with the objective of building a community and accelerating both adoption and development of your product. And yet, time goes by without the flood of patches arriving, and while a modest community of users builds up, you find that the time and money invested intodeveloping the community is not paying off as you had wished.
We can help
We hear stories like these all the time, and have even played a part in such stories over the years. What’s more, with over 10 years of experience working with Free Software communities including the GIMP, GNOME and OpenWengo, and spending much of that time building bridges between disparate communities, we are well placed to advise you on getting value for money when you invest in a Free Software project.